


To Suffer Need

by R_Knight



Category: Crooked Media RPF
Genre: Bets & Wagers, M/M, Polyamory, Praise Kink, Self-Discovery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-11
Updated: 2019-07-11
Packaged: 2020-06-26 12:32:40
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,876
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19768270
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/R_Knight/pseuds/R_Knight
Summary: “–And while I’m grateful that we only have to pay you in positive reinforcement, really Jon, it saves the company a lot of money, but I have to save some of my ‘good girl’s’ for Pundit–”Lovett makes an unintentionally revelatory comment. A bet is made. Jon discovers some things about himself.





	To Suffer Need

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Philippians 4:12, _"I am instructed both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need."_ The only thing you gotta know for this fic is that Emily and Jon are in an open relationship where sometimes they have sex with their friends, but it's a pretty new facet to their relationship.
> 
> If you recognise this, it's because I previously had it up as two fics that I ended up deleting. Well, this self-indulgent nonsense is back now, and as one fic. On the other hand if this is new to you - enjoy!
> 
> Obviously keep it secret etc.

**Jon**

Jon didn’t know when it became a  _ thing _ – maybe it had always been, maybe he’d always gotten lightheaded and dopey faced when someone told him was good, did good. If maybe Lovett’s smug diagnosis of Jon’s ‘happy-puppy face’ was something that he’d done in College, in the  _ White House. _ And, god – wasn’t that embarrassing, the idea that everyone, that  _ Obama  _ could see plainly how much it affected him whenever he was praised, that people might have talked behind his back about how much he wanted it, was begging for it. Jon could feel himself flushing hot thinking about it, his eyes prickling, unsure how to deal with the mix of humiliation and – he realized with dismay, increasing arousal, at the revelation.

_ Fuck _ Lovett. Really truly fuck Lovett and his unintentionally revelatory half-jokes, because Jon was a fully grown man and far too old to be learning brand knew things about himself. He’d done the oh-shit-I’m-bisexual thing in college, it was cool, it was fine, but that should have been the last of his sexual revelations. Trump was president, he had a wife, a company, a podcast. He was  _ busy. _ Now was not the time. Except, of course, it  _ was  _ the time, whether he liked it or not, thanks to Lovett.

They’d been doing an ad-read, and Jon couldn’t even remember what exactly he said, but it was probably something like  _ ‘ _ _ was that good?’ _ Or  _ ‘ _ _ how did I do?’  _ Or who knew, maybe he said something as embarrassing as  _ ‘ _ _ tell me I’m good’, _ because when no one had answered, and he’d repeated his question – whatever he’d said had made Lovett snort, rolling his eyes, and start in on maybe the most incomprehensible Lovett-rant to date.

“Jeez, calm down, we’ll reaffirm your worryingly delicate sense of self-worth after the ad, Jon,” he said, and, what.

“What?”

“C’mon, don’t do that with your face, all you have to do is wait two minutes, you can wait that long can’t you? If you can’t I’m going to start worrying about your temperament-”

“ _ What? _ ” Jon said. He tried to get Tommy’s attention to see if he knew where this was coming from, but he was red faced and giggling and no help at all.

“–And while I’m grateful that we only have to pay you in positive reinforcement, really Jon, it saves the company a lot of money, but I have to save some of my ‘  _ good girl’s _ ’ for Pundit–”

“Lovett – Lovett. What are you talking about? I don’t–”

“Uh, you most definitely do, Mister ‘Obama told me I’m good so I’m going to float on a cloud of – of clouds, all day, swanning around with my glowy skin and glistening eyes and that happy puppy face and - okay, that got away from me a little but, you get the point.”

“I don’t do a happy puppy face,” Jon protested, his cheeks still burning from the  _ good girl  _ comment.

“Uh, you kind of do,” Tommy said while wiping tears from his eyes, the absolute traitor.

“ _ Ha!” _ Lovett said, “See, Jon, it’s a well-known facet of your personality, it’s a – a personality flaw, one of your many, many personality flaws that we have to indulge. Fortunately, we are very generous people, and happily coddle you as much as is necessary to keep you functioning in society.”

“I don’t – you don’t – I don’t need  _ coddling. _ When do you do this?” Jon said, baffled and worried and – with dawning horror, beginning to remember the half dozen  _ was that good? ‘Yeah Jon’ – Did I nail it? ‘You did great Favs’ – How was that? ‘Great bud, really good ’ _ exchanges he could count in the last week alone. The twin raised eyebrows he got at that question were answer enough. “I don’t need it.”

“Sure, okay, you wanna bet?” Lovett said. The smug tone of his voice, the fact that he obviously believed that Jon would lose; Jon was agreeing before he could think about it, heedless against the warning bells telling him, betting both Lovett and Tommy – because Tommy had no sense of duty to his oldest friends – that he could make it a week without praise. Without at some point asking for it, and wasn’t that a terrible image, of going to either of them on his knees and begging for them to tell him he was good. But, whatever, it wasn’t going to happen, because it was just – habit, or something, not a need. It would be fine.

It would be absolutely fine.

*

Jon’s first snag occurred as soon as that evening, when he told Emily over dinner. Far from the sympathy he’d expected, or confusion, or even bemusement that Lovett and Tommy thought that this bet of all things was a good hill to die on, she’d just said, “  _ Babe,  _ ” and Jon knew her well enough to be able to parse that tone; it was equal parts admonishing and condescendingly worried. Like she thought he couldn’t do it either, and that he was worse than an idiot for even thinking he should try. Jon felt that squirming embarrassment start up in his stomach again, prickling at the back of his neck.

“You don’t think I – do I really – Em, do you–” he couldn’t figure out what he wanted to ask, if he wanted to know the answers anyway or if he just wanted reassurance, stumbling over his words and feeling more and more flustered as he did. Emily took pity on him though, sliding her chair closer and tugging him towards her chest, where he could hide his warm face in her neck.

“Hey,  _ hey _ , what’s got you so worked up, huh?" she said, "There’s nothing wrong with wanting confirmation that you’re doing well, we all need that sometimes.” Jon sighed,  _ wishing _ that that was all this was.

“But it’s not just sometimes, is it,” he mumbled against her neck, feeling a little pathetic but not willing to move back, “and I don’t think it’s – I think it – uh, might be more than that.”

“Oh?” Emily asked, her voice casual even as she started threading her fingers through his hair, soothing but expectant. In all likelihood, she knew exactly what his disjointed mumbling meant, but she wanted him to say it out loud.

( _ “Tell me you want him,” she’d said almost a year ago, guiding his dick into her and settling back, fully seated, like she could have waited forever. She had tied his arms to the headboard beforehand, something they didn’t do that often, and he only began to realize why she’d done so when he tried to hide his face behind an arm but couldn’t, his cheeks burning. Helpless, frustrated tears began to trickle their way down past his temples. When he tried to close his eyes she’d slapped his flank – a little mean, catching him with her nails, startling him into opening them again. _

_ “There we go, there you are baby,” she said, stroking where she’d scratched, moving one hand to cup his cheek and letting him turn his face into it. “I know, I know it’s hard for you, but you have to tell me. I’m okay with it, you know that, but you have to tell me first, okay? Tell me what you want.” _

_ “I w-want him,” Jon had said, catching himself on a sob, “I want him.” _

_ Jon had said, “I want – I want him to f-fuck me,” and he’d said, “please,” and then, later: “I want to be good for him.” _

_ So maybe the praise thing wasn’t surprising after all. _ )

“I think I like it,” Jon said finally, breathless with it, with the relief and the embarrassment and a sort of kindling excitement, “I want them – I want  _ Lovett _ to – tell me I’m. I’m–”

“A good boy?” Emily said, and when Jon looked up at her she was smiling, unaccountably fond. He hummed a little.

“I think I’m going to lose this bet,” he said in the end, slowly moving back and sitting up, pleased when Emily didn’t move her hand from his nape. She looked at him sweetly, lovingly, and gently shook her head.

“You couldn’t even last the rest of the day, babe,” she said, absolutely unforgiving. Which was –  _ fuck _ .

*

Emily had agreed, after a little begging on Jon’s part, not to tell Lovett or Tommy that he had immediately gone home and asked Emily for reassurance and affection; the conditions of the bet hadn’t  _ specifically  _ ruled either of those out, but it was more the principle of the thing. The idea of them both knowing he couldn’t even last the rest of the  _ day  _ was too terrible to think about, something that Emily had firmly latched onto that night. Jon hoped no one would notice the light puffiness under his eyes from crying. Emily truly would be the death of him one day, at least if Lovett didn’t get there first.

Unfortunately for Jon, he was drawn to people who would just as likely torment him as give him praise – but maybe that was the point. It was more meaningful to be offered something rare, or not freely given, wasn’t it? He’d had a cat as a child; he knew the drill. Affection from a cat that spent most of its time scratching or ignoring you was only that much more precious.

Although in this scenario John felt a little less like the owner, and more like the dumb dog, desperate to get the cat’s attention. Because the first three days of the bet were –  _ fine. _ Inasmuch as he managed not to slip up and ask if he did okay on an ad-read, if one of the live streams went well, if this one reply to a tweet was too passive aggressive, but he had to catch himself each time, and if the raised eyebrows and smug expressions from both Tommy and Lovett were any indication, they knew it too.

But that was fine. Or – _would_ have been fine, if Lovett hadn’t started lavishing everyone in the office with praise, obnoxiously yelling _‘_ _good job!’_ across the room, offering high fives and shoulder pats that made everyone else look at each other with bemusement, but made Jon _squirm._ Lovett had to know, _must_ have known how it was really affecting him, beyond that of simple reassurance, because as time passed the glances he sent towards Jon were more and more intense, more calculating. Figuring out which of Jon’s buttons to press as easily as if they were clearly labelled on a remote.

He didn’t even last till the end of the fourth day. It was stupid, _ ridiculous, _ but Jon was on edge and seethingly jealous of the praise Lovett was giving to everyone else even as he was embarrassed by it. It wasn’t genuine, he knew that, everyone else in the room knew that, but he couldn’t persuade his brain, his body of the fact. He spent most of the day overheated and faintly murderous, not sure if he wanted to yell at Lovett or beg him for affection or just cry at his desk for a bit, but in the end he didn’t have to make the choice, because Lovett made it for him.

Lovett was playing with Leo and Pundit while everyone else had gone out to lunch, purposefully making them late by getting the dogs both riled up enough that they were jumping around him and barking and too wriggly to ever let their leads be put on. When Pundit’s attention got caught on something else and she wandered off to investigate, Jon watched as Lovett crouched down to stroke Leo, ruffling his fur and holding his face between his palms. “You are just the  _ best boy _ , ” Lovett said, using a ridiculous baby-voice Jon hadn’t heard before. “ _ Such  _ a good dog, you’d never be bad huh? Not like your dad. He’s bad, he doesn’t deserve any treats, does he Leo? No he doesn’t, because he’s a  _ bad dog  _ –”

And, Jon was just. Done. Already unbalanced, already desperate and confused and stupidly jealous, he couldn’t help the sound that escaped, a distressed whine that made him flush the moment it left his mouth. A small, humiliating thing, that Lovett must have heard because he froze, still looking at Leo, and after a second Jon realized he was waiting, and he just – he had to, he couldn’t think, so he didn’t, he didn’t, he just said, “  _ Please, _ ” as he took a shaky step forward, he said, “Please,  _ please  _ Lovett,” as he dropped to his knees next to him, and too far gone to care about the bet, about what he looked like, what he was doing, Jon said: “You have to, you – please Lovett, tell me, tell me I’m – I’m–”

And when Lovett looked up at him, he was smiling, but not smugly, not meanly. A little surprised maybe, but mostly just fond, fond and indulgent, and Jon could feel it in his chest, could feel the rising desperation in him, helpless against it, waiting and waiting and waiting. Lovett took his hands off of Leo and nudged him gently away until he got the idea – and then he put his hands on Jon’s face the same as he had with Leo, palms on his cheeks, cooling on his warm skin. Jon made another sound, and then another, a panting whine that kept catching in his throat, and Lovett finally,  _ finally  _ took sympathy on him.

“Shh, hey, hey, calm down, I’ve got you, I didn’t mean it,” Lovett said, “You want me to tell you you’re good? You want me to tell you how good your doing, what a good boy you are?” Jon felt his entire body relaxing the moment Lovett said it, the days of frustration and need sloughing off him in waves and leaving him weightless and floating, his breathing a slow, even rhythm. Lovett was looking a little shocked himself, a little wondrous.

“There we go, that was all you needed, wasn’t it? You just wanted to be told you were a good boy, huh?” Lovett asked, his thumbs rubbing gently over Jon’s cheekbones. He didn’t seem to need an answer, which was good, because Jon didn’t think he could speak right now, hazy and light-filled. Lovett stroked his fingers over Jon’s face, petting him, offering him words of praise, and when two of his fingers brushed over Jon’s lips, it felt like the most natural thing in the world to lean forward and take them into his mouth, sucking a little sloppily, humming happily at the way Lovett’s breathing hitched in response.

Jon had been maintaining eye contact the entire time, so he could see it when Lovett found some sort of resolve - he pulled his fingers back, heedless of the way Jon tried to chase after them. “Hey, okay, we are in the office, okay, uh,  _ shit, _ ” Lovett said, blowing out a breath when he glanced down at Jon’s lap, probably seeing how hard he was, how hard he’d since the moment he dropped to the floor.

“Right, we are going to - uh, fuck, fuck it, you know what? We’re taking a long lunch,” Lovett said, standing up and pulling Jon with him, holding him steady. “I’m going to put the dogs in the car. You are going to tie your jacket around your waist, and ignore anyone that we see between here and us getting back to my house, okay?” Lovett waited just long enough for Jon to nod, for him to be sure that he could get to the car of his own volition, and then he was gone, searching for the dogs leads.

Jon blew out an unsteady breath, trying to will himself calm. And then he went to grab his jacket.

**Lovett**

The drive back was excruciating. Lovett was  _ trying _ to be the level-headed one, as far as ‘getting to his bedroom as fast as possible without crashing his car’ was level-headed, but since Jon had been replaced with some sort of clingy pod-person ( _ ha _ ), Lovett was unfortunately struggling to remember why he shouldn’t be letting Jon and his sweet, dopey face grope him while he was driving.

“J _ esus _ Jon, the dogs are gonna be scarred for life,” he yelped, slapping away Jon’s hand when he tried to sneak it down his pants. Jon huffed, putting his hand on Lovett’s thigh – too high to be appropriate in polite company, but no longer in dick groping territory. Until a second later, when his fingers started inching upwards again, stroking.

“ _ Please?  _ ”

“Oh, don’t start,” Lovett said, rolling his eyes. Not looking at Jon’s face was probably the only thing stopping Lovett from giving in and letting him have whatever he wanted, but he didn’t have to know that. When Jon started to make a sound like he was going to protest, Lovett hushed him. “Are you going to be good?” he asked, and – there it was, that tiny intake of breath, the spasming of Jon’s fingers where they still gripped Lovett’s thigh. Lovett listened to him breath in slowly through his nose, out his mouth, trying to collect himself.

“I’ll be good,” he said finally, quiet and worried, like he legitimately thought that Lovett might – what, take him all the way home only to send him packing? Turn the car around, tell him he was a bad dog again? Or – well. Lovett cast a quick glance over at Jon’s face, had to squeeze his thighs together at the pang of arousal that went through him when he saw Jon’s hangdog expression, the sad little furrow to his eyebrows.  _ This called for further investigating, _ Lovett thought, then: _ I wonder if I could make him cry. _ Though they would probably have to talk about it first, when Jon was in his right mind and not liable to just agree to whatever Lovett wanted – which was a terrible, awful,  _ hot  _ thought, that Lovett was going to pretend he never had until it inevitably popped into his head three days later when he was showering or something.

“I know you will,” Lovett said rather than any of the purposefully mean things he could think of. Later. Later.  _ How were they not at his house yet?  _ Lovett glanced in his rear-view mirror, saw the dogs sleeping peacefully, the lucky bastards, and very pointedly avoided looking over at Jon. What if he was  _ blushing  _ again? Lovett was comfortable in admitting that Jonathan Favreau’s wet-eyed, warm cheeked expression of wonder and eagerness when being told he was good was one of the most distractingly hot things he’d ever seen. Something about that much earnestness in a man with an aura so heterosexual was intoxicating, and Lovett couldn’t even tell  _ why  _ exactly it was a turn on.

Because, here was the thing: Lovett had genuinely, truthfully, never even consciously thought about Jon’s praise thing until the very second he was joking about it, and then yelling about it, and then watching in fascination as Jon’s face got steadily more and more red, as Jon got more and more flustered with every word Lovett had said. Getting Jon and Tommy flustered was basically Lovett’s job, so of course he chased that bone, of course he made the good girl comment just to see the bob of Jon’s throat as he swallowed, the way his jaw clenched against a noise that wanted to come out - at the time he thought it would have been frustrated, or angry, but now Lovett realized it probably would have been a whole different kind of noise.

(One of the noises that Lovett had  _ heard  _ now, a different breed than the ones he’d heard when they’d fooled around with each other before, which as delightful as they were – were absolutely  _ nothing  _ on the whining and panting, on the sweet little noises Jon had made in the back of his throat, utterly shameless, like he didn’t even know he was making them. Like he was surprised by his own reactions, like he was discovering the way his body responded just as much as Lovett was.)

So of course Lovett did all that, and of course he made the bet. Jon was easily manipulated into doing things if you appealed to his righteousness, and apparently self-righteousness worked just as well, because he’d agreed to the bet without giving it a second thought. Lovett wasn’t in the business of using words like delicious, but seeing Jon stew in his own flustered desperation for four days was better than any free sponsored food he’d ever had, he’d say  _ that. _ Tommy tried to make sounds about calling off the bet to Lovett over text, which was inexplicable, even if it was hilarious to watch the three little dots appear and disappear in their chat while he tried to figure out a normal way to say ‘I think Jon might actually die or maybe worse, quit the pod, if we don’t start complimenting him soon so we should call off the bet and shower him with love and kisses’. At least, that’s what Lovett assumed the much less wordy message he ultimately sent actually meant. Lovett’s own extremely wordy reply basically amounted to ‘no’ and also ‘I have recordings of you baby-talking to Lucca and I can and  _ will _ blackmail you with them’.

So they didn’t call off the bet, and Lovett was still somehow unaware of how deep Jon’s need really went. They had exchanged blowjobs and hand jobs and one very memorable ‘introduction to rimming 101’, but it was still strange to connect Jon with sex, or at least with anything other than the gentlest most vanilla hetero sex – which Lovett  _ knew  _ wasn’t even the case, because Emily had let one or two things slip when they got drunk together and discussed the concept of sharing him, and also he and Lovett were having sex, so, whatever. Lovett needed to work on re-calibrating his original, apparently misinformed image of Jon anyway, but  _ especially  _ now, with the thrilling new discovery that Jon had even more hidden depths than even he knew about.

In the end it was Emily, bless her, that made him realize. Lovett had gotten a text from her that just said  **be careful with him** and Lovett knew her well enough to parse that tone: it said  _ you are an idiot, we both know Jon is a beautiful delicate flower petal of a man and you are probably doing something right now that might make him sad and confused which is terrible, because have you  _ **_seen_ ** _ his face? Also you're an idiot. _

Maybe Lovett added in the idiots himself, but the text sparked something in his brain. _O_ _h. Turns out you are an oblivious idiot._

Lovett didn’t know much about sexually complimenting someone and if that was even a thing, let alone if Jon wanted that from him, not when he had a beautiful, and likely more than willing wife at home, but Lovett had never met a challenge he didn’t want to beat as quickly and efficiently as possible so that he could rub it in everyone’s faces, and he had the arguably transferable skills of a) being willing to indulge Jon an embarrassing amount, and b) having a patronizing tone of voice that lent itself to this situation, probably. Tongue in cheek apparently didn’t matter so much if the words were right, if they were genuine. And unfortunately Jon was most certainly the kind of person that inspired genuineness.

Jon stayed quiet and still the rest of the ride home, although he didn’t move his hand completely from Lovett’s thigh. When Lovett finally parked the car, he closed his eyes for a moment, listening to the quiet tick of the car’s engine cooling down, thinking about how this was going to go – how whatever was happening between them today was somehow  _ more  _ than anything else they’d done before. Lovett felt a little like he was being trusted with something precious, and that was an awful lot of responsibility. Sure, Jon was a grown man who could make his own decisions and survive any number of fuck ups Lovett could make, but he was also the sort of guy that cried at TV adverts and basically sewed his heart to his sleeves every morning; making him sad was like kicking a puppy.

“Should we call Emily?” Lovett asked, finally looking over at Jon. He looked calmer now, or at least a little less like he was actually high, but the question made his face twitch. He pulled his hand away from Lovett, put it back in his lap.

“We don’t have to – if it’s too weird we don’t have to do. That.”

“Don’t be an idiot,” Lovett scoffed, “Of course we are, I like it, you like it, we all like it. But historically we  _ have  _ informed Emily before we fucked, so…”

“Yeah. Yeah, okay,” Jon said, reaching into his pocket for his phone, maybe a little reluctantly. Lovett wondered how much he and Emily had talked about this whole thing. Because of course she must know, but the details of it all – had Jon told her all the things that Lovett had been saying to other people, how much he hated it? Had he told her how confused he was by the situation, asked her what it meant that he felt the way he did? Had he asked her for it? Had he begged her? Lovett wanted to know  _ everything. _ He watched Jon pull up Emily’s contact and hit call, and then hit the speaker option, because he always felt the need to make sure Lovett didn’t feel left out, even if it was sort of a moot point, what with them literally making this call to talk about the sex they would be having. 

Emily answered after the second ring. “Jon?”

“H-hey babe,” Jon said, and Lovett couldn’t tell if he was nervous or excited or both, but the crack in his voice was pretty hot either way. “Lovett is with me. He told me to call, uh, to let you know that we’re taking – taking a long lunch.” There was a beat of silence on the other end of the phone. Lovett hid his smile behind his hand.

“Hey Lovett,” Emily said, then, “So you lost the bet, baby?” and Lovett could hear the smile in her voice too, hear the same stupid-fondness he was sure was reflected in his own. Jon made a strangled noise.

“He really,  _ really  _ did,” Lovett cut in, “and I would be happy to tell you  _ all  _ about it.”

“Oh, you will. Come over for dinner later, Lovett, and you can tell me everything,” Emily said, “I have to go, but you guys have fun. Be good for him, sweetheart.” And then she hung up. Lovett stared at Jon’s neck for a second, watching it redden.

“Well.”

“We should–”

“Yeah, yeah okay, c’mon, let’s go inside,” Lovett said.

*

Once the dogs were settled and they had closed themselves away in Lovett’s bedroom, Lovett stopped for a second, unsure where to start. Did they get to the sex stuff right away, or should he do some  _ good boy  _ stuff first? Was the  _ good girl  _ on the table, or did that require a conversation first? Usually they started with kissing and then just ended up frantically doing whatever came to mind first. Maybe they should start there.

“Okay,” Lovett said, kicking off his shoes and stripping off his shirt, “get naked.” And Jon  _ did. _ Stripped himself of his clothes entirely, standing perfect and tall and tanned in the center of Lovett’s room, his face open and his body language relaxed – easy. Patient. A man deserving of a few compliments if there ever was one. Lovett kept his own pants and socks on, enjoying that visual; they’d never played with power dynamics before, usually too busy hastily stealing time among the busyness of their lives, and even during the few times where they could take it slow had mostly involved Lovett introducing Jon to the wonders of having sex with another man - starting on easy mode turned out to have been a good idea, because Lovett wasn’t sure he would have been ready or capable of handling this whole situation otherwise. Having the added bonus of being varying levels of dressed helped with that too.

Lovett watched Jon shiver a little. “That’s good. You like being naked while I’m still dressed? It’s nice. You look – ah, well you know how you look, I don’t need to tell you.” Jon’s fingers twitched, his toes curling against the carpet. Lovett studiously avoided looking at his dick, wondering how long he could keep skipping over the good bits before Jon got frantic again, if it was doing anything for him to have to wait or if he was legitimately just desperate to hear that he was good. That was another talk to have later though; Lovett figured once was enough for one day, especially since it was clearly the first time this had ever happened to him.

“C’mon, get on the bed,” Lovett said, ushering Jon backwards until he was sitting, looking up at Lovett through his lashes. “Mm, okay, very nice. Maybe next time we’re required to wear suits for an event we can do this again, have you leave early and wait for me in my hotel room, just like this.” Lovett took Jon’s face in his hands for the second time that day, taking in freckles that speckled across his face, the way his pupils were expanding, blowing out like he was high. The redness of his open mouth. If Lovett leaned in close enough he could hear his quiet breathing, slow and even – intentional. Trying to keep calm, or maybe trying to keep quiet.

Lovett leaned in a little closer, until Jon closed his eyes and tilted his head back just that little bit more, always so patient, and then Lovett pressed his mouth to his cheek – to the bridge of his nose and his forehead, to the corner of his mouth, just barely touching his skin. Lovett pulled back a little, watching Jon’s eyebrows furrow, his tongue poke out to lick his lips like he was trying to taste Lovett.

Lovett took pity on him, asked, “Do you want to be good?” And when Jon’s only response was to nod, the barest dip of his chin, he told him, “You have to ask me then sweetheart. I’ll do whatever – whatever you want tonight, okay? Tell you what you want to hear, but you have to ask for it.” 

And wasn’t  _ that  _ a dilemma. Because somewhere between getting into the car and back out again, Jon had apparently decided he was embarrassed about the noises or the begging or both, and as lovely as a nonverbal Jon was, Lovett wanted the  _ sounds. _ He’d already heard them, which meant that that Jon’s worries didn’t matter anyway, but more importantly, that there was no way in hell that Lovett was going the rest of his life without hearing them again. He would make Emily record them if he had to, set them as his alarm in the morning or his ringtone or replace the Love it or Leave it intro with them, and then just – bask.

“Please, please Lovett,” Jon said, eyes still squeezed shut, which was a start. Lovett stroked one thumb over his cheek, pressing hard against the bone.

“And?”

Jon opened his eyes, blinking rapidly. His throat caught a few times before he could manage to get his words out, plaintive, “Lovett, you have to, you have to, p-please – tell me. Tell me I’m –  _ good. _ Tell me I’m good, Lovett. Lovett, please tell me–” His voice caught in something close to a sob when he finally said _ good, _ hitching in the middle, but once he said it, it was like he’d broken through any leftover shame, because Lovett hadn’t ever seen him like this before; shameless, yes, but also just so –  _ undone, _ so twisted up and aching and not in control of himself at  _ all. _ Lovett fought the urge to adjust himself in his pants at the sight of him, eyes wide and earnest and his skin pink  _ everywhere, _ including his dick, when Lovett finally took a good look at it, hard and leaking. His thighs and stomach were shiny with precum, messy with it. Lovett wanted to get him messier. Dirty.

“Okay, there we go, that wasn’t so hard, was it,” Lovett said, moving one hand up to thread through his hair, “you did very good. You’ve been a very good boy, doing as your told, so – so well behaved,” he added, figuring Jon hadn’t balked at any of this yet, and veering a little into roleplaying seemed to be something he liked so far. And risk well taken, because Jon made one of those sounds again, closing his eyes and whining. This close, Lovett could see the goosebumps on his arms when he shivered, the hair standing on end.

“  _ God  _ you’re responsive. So good, Jon. What else do you want?”

“I want,” Jon said, licking his lips, “You’ll keep–”

“Of course, of course I’ll keep telling you how good you are, but what else do you want, baby?”

Jon breathed in through his nose, slowly, then out again. “I want whatever you want. I don’t – uh, I don’t want to make any decisions,” he said, his voice rough. “Like I’m a – like I don’t. Understand.” Jon whined again then, though this time it sounded more frustrated than anything. Lovett ran the words over in his mind, _ Like I’m a. Like I don’t understand. _ Oh. Lovett had been right about the roleplaying thing, then. Well, cool. He was game.

“Okay, all right sweetheart,” he said, stroking Jon’s hair and tugging a little as he did, noting the way Jon leaned into it. “Why don’t you lay back then for me, make yourself comfortable.”

Jon shifted up the bed, but turned as if to lay on his front, so Lovett made a sharp sound at him, “ Ah. Show me your belly, c’mon, I’d have thought that was your style, Jon," he said, faux-stern, "Or haven’t you learnt that trick yet?"

**Jon**

Jon couldn’t tell you the date, his name, the country he lived in if you asked him. Every time he thought he was done, thought he’d experienced the apex, the absolute peak of mortified arousal, Lovett went ahead and said something so much worse. So much  _ better, _ so much more confusing. Jon shouldn’t be surprised, because he asked for it himself, he swallowed his embarrassment and his fear that it was too much, too far, and said _ like I’m a – like I don’t understand _ . Enough that he could explain it away if Lovett didn’t get it, but if he did – well, if he did – Lovett was nothing if not an overachiever.

So Lovett had said  _ all right sweetheart, _ and he said _ lay back for me, _ and he said  _ show me your belly. _ Jon had frozen, or he hadn’t, but his thoughts had. He tipped himself over onto his back on autopilot, watching Lovett, every thought in his head caught on those words, a smoky haze of humiliation so sharp and hungry it was swallowing him whole, twisting and shifting into something that made his eyes sting, his toes curl tight and cramping. He didn’t know how he got to this point, what experiences in his life, what feelings in his subconscious had made a phrase so simple, so innocuous affect him like this, but it didn’t matter. Nothing mattered, because Lovett was still speaking, the same tone he’d used on Leo earlier – god, it felt like had passed – sweet words, sweet tone with that touch of patronizing laughter behind it, the combination that had Jon leaking against his stomach, sticky and hard and desperate to be touched. Desperate to hear more.

Lovett didn’t disappoint, and the words cut through Jon’s pink haze of overwhelmed arousal liked arrows through smoke, piercing Jon wherever his fingers touched. Lovett said, “hey, hey, don’t cry, c’mon puppy,” while he stroked his hands down Jon’s arms, which made it  _ worse, _ made him feel small and cared for and flushed white hot with it, Lovett added, “you’ve been so good today, so – so perfect, you’ve done exactly as you were told,” petting Jon’s stomach in long, firm strokes.

Lovett touched him all over until it felt like his entire body was tingling, twitching at the lightest touch, so that when he said, “that’s all you want isn’t it, all you’ve ever wanted, just to be told what to do, taught how to be a good boy,” when he said: “here, puppy, I’ll teach you how to beg,” and finally, finally took Jon’s dick in his hand, Jon was just – gone. In the clouds, away again, caught up in this hazy reality where he couldn’t feel shame or guilt, couldn’t overthink, couldn’t think, couldn’t  _ think _ anything other than  _ Lovett, Lovett, Lovett. _ He was vaguely aware of the sounds he was making – he couldn’t stop them if he wanted to, but Lovett seemed to like them, adjusting himself with one hand while he still jacked Jon slowly with the other, encouraging with his own sounds of approval.

“There you go, there it is. Aren’t you sweet,” Lovett said, and Jon, watching his mouth shape the words and having the sudden realization that they hadn’t even  _ kissed  _ yet, that more than coming, more than praise, more than anything else, he needed to be kissed  _ now  _ – let out a long, desperate whine, a breathless jumble of syllables that he didn’t think sounded at all like the  _ please, Lovett, _ he had tried to get out. But it turned out not to matter, because when he tried to lift his head to catch Lovett’s mouth with his own, Lovett knew what he wanted, pressing him back down onto the bed and saying, “you want to be kissed puppy? You have to show me how much you want it, or – is that too much? You need me to tell you? C’mon, say  _ please _ , Lovett.”

Jon stared at him for a second, wanting, wanting so much, but worried the words would catch on his tongue, that the sounds he would make wouldn’t be good enough, would disappoint Lovett. The idea was  _ painful _ , like this, like the only thing in the world that mattered was pleasing Lovett, and being good for Lovett, and giving Lovett everything he wanted. He could feel himself tensing up over it, getting upset, but Lovett must have noticed, because he put both of his hands on Jon’s face, holding him tight, and leaned in to kiss him gently. When Jon tried to deepen it, eager to suck on Lovett’s tongue, eager to have all of him and give all of himself, Lovett pulled back, still holding him in place.

“You’re perfect, your perfect baby, I’m not going to be disappointed in you. You can’t do anything wrong okay? No matter what,” he said, somehow knowing what Jon needed more than he did himself. Jon nodded, as much as he could, still caught between Lovett’s hands. “Go on then, puppy.”

“ _ Please _ ,” Jon answered him, the roughness of his voice surprising him. “Please, Lovett.”

“Good, good boy. Now tell me what you want. Say,  _ I want you _ -”

“Please Lovett, please - please–” Jon said in a rush, “I want you to kiss me. Kiss me, please, just -  _ please _ Lovett, can you-” and Lovett  _ did _ , finally, pressing his mouth to Jon’s  _ hard _ , moaning when Jon did, opening his mouth when Jon did, letting him suck on his tongue, lick at him and bite at him and beg him wordlessly for more. Which Lovett did, reaching his hand back down between them - where Jon had begun to rut against Lovett’s thigh heedlessly, shamelessly – and start to stroke him again, faster this time, just a little too tight, grounding Jon in the sensation. Jon really, really wasn’t going to last long. He’d been hard since getting on his knees back at the office, and even during the drive he hadn’t softened that much, every wave of embarrassment over how he was behaving (over telling Emily, over the idea of them both talking about him, of him sat on the floor, completely ignored while they discussed what he’d done, how he’d acted) only adding to it.

There must be something wrong with him to react like that, like  _ this  _ – eager and desperate and out of his mind with arousal while Lovett said all those things to him. About him, a little, like Lovett was talking to himself, or - or like he thought Jon couldn’t understand. In-between kisses and against his neck, Lovett pressed words into his skin,  _ I’ll give you what you need, can’t believe I didn’t know – didn’t know how needy you are, how you look like this, how you sound _ . He jerked Jon faster, his voice becoming clipped and halting, like he was close too, just as affected as Jon was.

“That’s it puppy,” Lovett said, pressing a breathless kiss to the underside of Jon’s jaw and letting Jon catch his thumb between his teeth, desperate to have something to suck on, “that’s it. You can come whenever you want, Jon. Show me how good you are,” and Jon  _ did _ . Like his body had been waiting, without his knowledge, for Lovett’s approval, for Lovett to allow him, before he could finally let go.

And he did, he  _ did _ , lost to it again, untethered, everything after that was a haze; Lovett gently nudging him over onto his stomach, the sound of Lovett shedding the last of his clothing, the sudden shock of Lovett’s fingers between his ass cheeks, slicking him up with his own come – Lovett spreading them, Lovett  _ spitting _ , the sound of it loud and vulgar in the quiet of the room. Jon’s own heavy breathing was muffled in a pillow, and then - when Lovett pressed in close, holding Jon’s ass with a tight, bruising grip, and sliding his dick along the crack, rutting against him and catching on his hole – then the sound of him crying out was too, the sound of him panting and keening and whining what might have been Lovett’s name, but could have been anything. He was so sensitive, still twitchy all over from his orgasm, and it was too much, was almost too much, but then Lovett was freezing with his grip tight tight tight on Jon’s ass, his hips, sure to leave bruises that Emily would dig her nails into – and then he was coming with a grunt.

They were both silent, for a moment, just panting together in the quiet, Lovett carefully sitting back and uncurling his fingers, moving them back to press at Jon’s hole, using their combined come and his split to press his little finger against him, just briefly pressing in, the barest hint of it; of a promise for another time. And then he was sliding it out again, smearing their come over Jon’s skin, wiping his hand on his lower back, and the humiliation, the way his dick twitched a little in response - that, surprisingly, was what did it. The tears that Jon had barely held back before were spilling over before he could try to stop it, and horrible embarrassing sobs kept catching in his throat, barely muffled by the pillow. He knew, rationally, why this was happening – the dozenth time he’d gotten tearful during sex with Emily he’d googled it and read all about endorphins and how it was normal for some people and he shouldn’t be ashamed et cetera, but it had never been like this before, so full, so intense.

“ _ Oh _ , oh no, hey, c’mon sweetheart-” Lovett said, shifting them around so that he could hold Jon, pressed up against his back with a leg and an arm wrapped around him, always knowing what Jon needed – how to ground him, “I know, I know it was a lot. Did I do something wrong, or is it all just hitting you? You don’t have to speak, just nod your head if you’re okay, Jon.”

Jon managed to focus on what Lovett was saying enough that he nodded, but couldn’t stop himself from crying into the arm Lovett had hooked under his head, probably getting both gross and numb now, but he didn’t seem to mind, using his free hand to stroke through Jon’s hair, down his spine, along his side while he made soothing noises at him and pressed gentle kisses against his neck. 

*

“You’re so sweet, so sweet baby,” Lovett was saying when Jon finally came back to himself a little while later, feeling a little more emotionally steady. He curled and uncurled his toes, stretched out his legs a little, and then twisted around so that he could face Lovett. “Oh, oh, hey. How are you feeling?”

Jon smiled at him sleepily, not caring that his face was probably a puffy, tear-stained mess. “Good,” he said, his voice rough and croaky. “Bit sticky though.”

Lovett laughed, closing his eyes for a second. “Yeah, yeah okay, we should probably shower. And I’m glad you’re feeling good, I think I was running out of pet-names towards the end there.”

“You did well,” Jon told him seriously.

“Isn’t that my line?”

Jon hummed happily in agreement, “It was good. You really didn’t – I know you said you wanted to, but – thanks. Thank you, Lovett.”

Lovett rolled his eyes at him, starting to shift around – Jon was surprised he hadn’t already gotten uncomfortable with this level of intimacy and naked emotion, if he was honest. “All right, all right, I get it. You are very welcome, Jon. Now I think we should probably shower so we don’t end up stuck together. Emily would never let us hear the end of it.”

“We should text Tommy, too,” Jon said as he sat up, snorting when Lovett’s eyes widened in realization.

“ _ Fuck _ , I completely forgot to tell him we were – fuck, forget Emily,” Lovett said, leaning over the side of the bed to rifle through his clothes in search of his phone, “ Tommy is never going to let us live this down. Damn it. This is your fault.”

“You started the bet!”

“You agreed to it.”

You made me realize I wanted this in the first place, Jon wanted to say, you made me realize a whole lot of things. But Lovett in all likelihood already knew that, and Jon didn’t want to give him  _ more _ ammunition for his ‘I lured you to the dark side’ jokes, no matter how much Jon protested that he knew he liked men in college, even if he hadn’t acted on it.

“Right,” Lovett said, biting his lip as he read what was probably a dozen texts from Tommy on his phone, “Right, okay. I guess Tommy knew more than he was letting on, because these texts are way less confused and way, way more congratulatory than I expected. Huh.”

“Hm,” Jon said.

“Hm is right. I think – I think we should have a long shower to spite him. He deserves it.”

“Yeah, okay,” Jon said, smiling helplessly.

“So, do we like - need to call Emily once per day, or once per orgasm, then? Because I have big plans for this shower. More tricks to teach you."  
  



End file.
